Regional News

Gov’t held LegCo co-location talks

The Government has held numerous consultations with the Legislative Council on the co-location arrangement of the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link.

Secretary for Transport & Housing Frank Chan made the statement to the media today, saying the Government has been clear from the start that a co-location arrangement was the best way forward and discussed such an arrangement with legislators many times.

“As you are aware the Government has been doing all it can and all it should since the inception of the high-speed rail, because if you look into the documents being kept by the Legislative Council, you would appreciate that there were and there are records of these consultations all the time.”

Mr Chan said the term “co-location” has been mentioned many times in LegCo’s past records. He added in the 2013-14 legislative year, there were four enquiries by then legislators Jeffrey Lam, Sin Chung-kai, Frederick Fung and Ronny Tong.

“In all these four sessions, the Government has put it very clearly that co-location is the option forward and the Government has then promised to inform the legislature as soon as there is any progress.

“As you are aware that since we (have) come to an initial agreement with the Mainland counterpart, we have actually presented our proposal publicly on July 25.

“And then we went back to the Legislative Council to table our consultative reference on August 3, and then we are going to do it again in the joint panel (meeting) next Tuesday.

“So the Government has been doing what has been promised in terms of public consultation and also with the legislature.”